The name of U.S.
District Judge Audrey B. Collins has been sent to the State Bar Commission on
Judicial Nominees Evaluation as a possible candidate for appointment to this
district’s Court of Appeal, the MetNews has learned.

Collins, 68, who
did not return a phone call, could fill any of four seats currently vacant in
the district, or potentially a future vacancy.

The current
openings result from the retirements of Justices Paul Coffee from Div. Six on
Jan. 31 of last year, Justice Kathryn Doi Todd from Div. Two on Jan.
22 of this year, Justice Frank Jackson from Div. Seven June 30 of this year,
and Justice Orville Armstrong from Div. Five a month later.

Possible
Presiding Justice

Collins, a
former chief judge of the district, might also be considered as presiding
justice in Div One, a post from which Robert Mallano is retiring Feb. 28, the
same day that Justice Steven Suzukawa is retiring from Div. Four.

AUDREY B. COLLINS

U.S. District
Judge

She was
appointed to the federal bench by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994. At the
time, she was the assistant district attorney for Los Angeles County, the No. 3
position in the office.

Collins
graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Howard University in 1967, and earned her
master’s degree in government and public administration from American
University in 1969. She graduated Order of the Coif from UCLA’s law school in
1977, and joined the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles as an assistant staff
attorney.

One year later,
Collins became a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County. She served as
the head deputy in the Torrance branch office from 1987-1988, assistant
director of the Bureau of Central and Special Operations from 1988-1992, and
assistant district attorney from 1992-1994.

She also served
as deputy general counsel to William H. Webster, in his capacity as special
advisor to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners following the civil
unrest of 1992.

She served as
chief judge of the district court from 2008 until last year, when she stepped
down three years prior to the completion of her term.

Larson
Resignation

It was in her
capacity as chief judge that she issued a six-page statement on the occasion of
Judge Stephen G. Larson’s resignation in 2009. The district, she said,
“faces a crisis of retention…due in large part to two factors: stagnating
judicial compensation and ever-increasing caseloads.”

She noted that
Larson, who went into private practice, was the eighth judge to resign or
retire in an 11-year period, contrary to the longstanding tradition that
federal judges serve for life, whether on active or senior status.

She noted that
five had become private judges, giving them “the potential to earn the
equivalent of a district judge’s annual salary in a matter of months,” while
two had accepted state court appointments “at a higher salary and better health
benefits.”